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Abstract

Consider this possibility: The United States may soon have an excess of physicians delivering primary care to adults. Unconventional as it may sound, this assertion is worth examining in light of a recent series of studies of primary care in general, and internal medicine in particular.

Since the late 1960s, consensus has supported a very different viewpoint. Most authorities have argued that the United States has been underproducing primary care practitioners of all varieties and overproducing subspecialists. This view has governed the formulation of federal policy toward health professionals and was reiterated in the preamble to Public Law 94-484, the